If you want to make sure you take intelligent and dynamic action to solve your problems and achieve your goals, here is what you can do to coach yourself to success:

- Make your goal clear, specific and time-bound
- Pray to Krsna for intelligence and determination
- Make a list of all the benefits from achieving the goal
- Check your motivation and determination on a scale 1 to 5
- Make a detailed plan of action with deadlines for each action
- Think of ways how to do it better and faster
- Make your best effort and be aware that results depend on Krsna
- Send regular daily or weekly reports to your coach or friend
- Pray to Krsna to make you a useful instrument in His hands

Their Lordships adorn Their white and wine swan-set today which reminds us of a verse in the Bhagavatam:

"In this way both swans live together in the heart. When the one swan is instructed by the other, he is situated in his constitutional position. This means he regains his original Krsna consciousness, which was lost because of his material attraction."

(SB 4.28.64)

Just like the two immaculate swans face each other, we pray that our purified jiva-swan turns back and faces the paramatma-swan to finally regain His long-lost darsana.

This week at Hare Krishna Valley we began planning our spring crops by visiting some local organic gardeners in order to receive their advice as to what we should plant in September. Manigriva Prabhu is designing a new market garden on a 1/4 of an acre which will provide more variety in terms of what we grow.

The renovation of the Temple room is nearing completion with some new drapes arriving for our curtains. The overall look of the Temple is very effective, making it look more and more like an exotic Indian Temple.

We look forward to speaking to you again next week.
Until then, I remain yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada.

1970 July 26: "I am trying to organize a worldwide movement not for any personal ambition but to execute superior orders so kindly keep me informed of your activities at least twice in a week, otherwise I become very much anxious and do not eat, do not sleep."Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1970 July 26: "These are the most important duties for the brahmacarinis. Caitanya Mahaprabhu personally used to inspect temple cleaning and if He would see a little particle of dust He would remark, 'O, you have not done very nice.' Cleansing the temple is so nice one can get promotion to the spiritual kingdom in one of the Vaikuntha planets."Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1970 July 26: "Recently I have given Sannyas to six Brahmacaris and they have been sent in different parts of the country for preaching and two of them will come with me so as soon as I hear that we have got a place, immediately I shall join you with two Sannyasis."Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1972 July 26 : "As long as classes are going on well, the rules and regulations are being observed sincerely, the sankirtana party is going out with enthusiastic mood - then everything is first-class."Prabhupada Letters :: 1972

1975 July 26: "I wish to translate Valmiki Ramayana exactly in the way I have done Srimad-Bhagavatam. When I return to India I am very much eager to see your book on Lord Ramacandra translated into English."Prabhupada Letters :: 1975

1975 July 26: "Now you are in ripe old age, so you can accept vanaprastha life. So keeping your wife with you as assistant you now retire from family life and accept vanaprastha and fully engage in translating the Vedic literature."Prabhupada Letters :: 1975

1975 July 26: "Now I wish to establish some temple of Sita Ram. Of course it depends on the mercy of Lord Ramacandra. Therefore I am requesting you to join our movement completely retired from family life."Prabhupada Letters :: 1975

Please read before viewing the picture – it’s worth it. A picture began circulating in November. It should be ‘The Picture of the Year,’ or perhaps, ‘Picture of the Decade.’ . The picture is that of a 21-week-old Unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is being operated on by surgeon named Joseph Bruner.

The baby was diagnosed with spina bifida and would Not survive if removed from his mother’s womb.

…
She knew of Dr Bruner’s remarkable surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt Univ Med Ctr in Nashville , he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb.

During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby. As Dr Bruner completed the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon’s finger.

Dr Bruner was reported as saying that when his finger was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life, and that for an instant during the procedure he was just frozen, totally immobile.

The photograph captures this amazing event with perfect clarity The editors titled the picture, ‘Hand of Hope.’ The text explaining the picture begins, ‘The tiny hand of 21-week-old fetus Samuel Alexander Armas emerges from the mother’s uterus to grasp the finger of Dr Joseph Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of life.’

Little Samuel’s mother said they ‘wept for days’ when they saw the picture. She said, ‘The photo reminds us pregnancy isn’t about disability or an illness, it’s about a little person.’Samuel was born in perfect health, the operation 100 percent successful.

One Response to “The baby grabs the surgeons fingers”

Oh wow, that was worth seeing!..Thanks for uploading. What else do they need, for the child to speak? It is so unfortunate, but in Kali it won’t make much difference to those who want to do these acts… just like animal slaughter, the cries of the animals fall on deaf ears..

We start our own tomato plants because we are a little finicky about varieties. For example, we like Prudens Purple as our best tasting tomato. It is the same color and taste as its more famous cousin Brandywine but a little smaller and less misshapen or prone to splitting. Biggest plus, it comes in a few weeks earlier.

For a good looking tomato about the size and color consumers find the most attractive (we are still influenced by our years of growing for Farmer’s Markets) we use Celebrity. This is a (ALERT the following information may be shocking to purists!) hybrid (there I said it) that ranks in taste with most of the heritage varieties but has a real advantage in having a high degree of disease resistance. There are reasons that hybrids replaced a lot of the heritage varieties and it isn’t only greed of the seed companies, disease played a huge role.

For paste tomatoes we long ago left Roma in the dust. We have used San Marzano as a main crop and Bellstar for an early one. The new variety we are trying this year is Opalka, also a paste tomato, and if it is as good as the catalog says and performs well, may challenge San Marzano for a spot in the lineup.

For an early tomato we use Red Alert, but I could be convinced there is a better one and next year the new tomato trial may be an early one. It is a determinate cherry type that comes in early but poops out when others start coming in.

Red Fig is our choice for a main season cherry type tomato which this is that size and good for salads and eating out of hand, like with pretzels while driving and trying to make some time and not stopping for lunch. Needless to say, it is not cherry shaped but looks like little figs and I like the novelty of it. Very prolific.

Interesting side note: Finding the links to these varieties in the two catalogs I order from, I can’t find Red Fig. It was planted out of a leftover packet from the previous year and has been rotated out of the catalog I originally ordered it from. Which happens. I had to Google to find a new source.

If I could only have one tomato it would be Rutgers as it is only a little less tasty than the best heritage tomatoes and also great for canning, i.e. almost as meaty as a paste tomato so we always grow some of those.

We also grow a tomatillo which can be considered a tomato and as it has the same cultural requirements. For use in salsa and even soups.

If you can have more than one, as we can, there are hundreds of great varieties to choose from and the list of what we grow is not meant to be at all definitive. These are tomatoes that have done well for us in our climate. Every year we try a new variety or two just to see what is out there. Many we no longer grow are great tomatoes but we already have a similar tomato and try to keep the variety count down as it is real easy to start having too many and then get confused as to what is what.

So we have an early and main season variety of three categories — paste (Bellstar,San Marzano) , cherry (Red Alert, Red Fig), and fresh eating (Pruden’s Purple, Celebrity, and Rutgers). We also try a new one every year (Opalka this time around).

We used to grow an orange or a yellow one but no longer do for reasons that may not be that important but it really depends on what you like.

So hopefully this is of some help. Just beware of catalog fever, the irrational January desire to order and grow more tomato varieties than you can possibly deal with. I have had it several times. :-)

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